In 1837, a little known scientist named Andrew Crosse created life in
his personal laboratory. Although it was accomplished entirely by
accident, Andrew carefully documented his procedures and several members
of the London Electrical Society were able to duplicate the incident
including the infamous Michael Faraday.

Surely a discovery such as this would turn the world on end and make
a person an instant hero? Although the entire world did take
notice and Andrew was entered in the Dictionary of National Biography,
he was far from a hero. In fact, Andrew became one of the most
hated men in England, an unfortunate notoriety that would soon destroy
him.

It is well known that Crosse lectured in England during the early
1800's on topics concerning his electrical experimentation. In
fact, as a strange side note, there's a pretty good chance that Mary
Shelly, author of the book Frankenstein, attended one of Crosse's
lectures. At the time of this particular lecture, it's quite
possible that Andrew Crosse already had succeeded in creating life or at
least came close to it. But, it wasn't until 1837 that the world
would be stunned by Crosse's success.

He made glass out of grounded flint and potassium carbonate,
and dissolved it in hydrochloric acid. His idea was then to
allow this fluid to dry, little by little, through a lump of porous
stone which had been 'electrified' by a battery, and to see whether it
formed crystals.

Crystals were not formed but Crosse noticed a curious side
effect. On the porous stone he noticed many small white
lumps. He then decided to let the experiment continue. After
a week he noted hand like extensions growing out of the white
lumps. Later he could tell that they were legs. After
four weeks the creatures could easily been seen under a magnifying glass
walking around. They appeared to be small insect like
creatures. Thinking that possibly insect eggs had contaminated his
controlled experiment, he decided to give it another shot and this time
carefully control the influence of outside variables.

This time Crosse use air tight containers. Beforehand, all the
components were completely sterilized using hot alcohol. The
electrical wire entered the sealed container through a glass
stopper. The glass was made at a temperature that would melt iron
and distilled water was used to mix the concoction, consisting of iron
sulfate, copper sulfate, and copper nitrate. Finally, the battery
was connected and the slow dripping process began. After a few
months Crosse once again noticed the insect like creatures crawling
around inside the controlled environment. He was then certain that
he had indeed created life.

Ecstatic with his discovery, he immediately documented the results
and quickly sent them to the London Electrical Society. Other
engineers repeated the experiment with similar success. Soon the
entire world was aware of Crosse's experiments and his personal living
hell began...

Clergymen and others all throughout Europe were shocked at the
blasphemous atrocity. People closed their doors in his
face. Merchants refused to serve him and the local church gathered
on his doorstep to perform and exorcism of this demonic
beast. Crosse tried to explain that the 'was in humble and
lowly reverence of that Great Being' but the world refused to
listen. He was an outcast and quickly withdrew from public sight.

The great Michael Faraday defended Crosse before the Royal
Institution and claimed that he himself was able to duplicate the
experiment and create the strange creatures. All this was to
no avail. Crosse died 18 years later a lonely and bitter man.

The precise details required to conduct the experiment are not clear
in our present day but it is generally accepted that several persons
were successful in duplicating Crosse's experiment. It is also
known that many more failed...

Those that succeeded described the creatures as tiny 'mites' and even
suggested naming the new species Acari Crossii. Detractors
insisted that some sort of contamination had occurred and the creatures
must have been some sort of common insect.

Time, as is often the case, has blurred the exact method needed to
conduct this experiment successfully. Hence, we may never know the
how and why the creatures were created or if they indeed were
created. But could it be possible that Crosse stumbled across the
primordial soup that evolutionist theorize was needed to create the
world's first life form...